Bears receiver Rome Odunze has a right calf injury, but the team’s first injury report of the season suggests it is not serious.
The Bears listed Odunze as limited on their injury report. He limped off the practice field last Thursday, and the initial fear was an aggravation of his foot injury from last season.
Odunze missed five games last season.
He took Monday and Tuesday as rehab days for his calf and is trending toward playing Sunday.
Left tackle Ozzy Trapilo was also limited as he works his way back from a patellar tendon injury. He’s not expected to play Sunday.
Backup quarterback Tyson Bagent (back) missed practice.
The Bears did not practice Wednesday so their injury report was an estimate.
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Running back Jonathon Brooks is on the Panthers’ injury report for Week 1, but it sounds like he’s in good shape to make his first regular season appearance since Week 14 of the 2024 season.
Head coach Dave Canales said that Brooks is dealing with “a little bit of soreness” in his groin and that the team limited his practice workload as a result. Canales added that he is “very confident that he’ll be out there” against the Bears on Sunday.
Brooks’s 2024 torn ACL was his second in as many years and he missed all of last season while recovering.
Defensive tackle Bobby Brown (back) was also a limited participant while defensive end Pat Jones (back) did not practice. Canales said Jones will not play against Chicago.
The Bears have settled on a starting left tackle.
Head coach Ben Johnson announced on Tuesday that Braxton Jones will be manning the position against the Panthers on Sunday. Jones competed with Theo Benedet, Kiran Amegadjie, and Jedrick Wills over the course of the offseason and summer.
Jones started 44 games at the position over the last four seasons, which likely helped give him an edge at what Johnson called “a hot spot” for the team last month. Amegadjie and Wills have since been released.
Ozzy Trapilo took over the starting job on the left side last season, but he’s still working his way back from the patellar tendon injury he suffered in the postseason. Johnson said there’s no timeline for the end of that process at the moment, so Jones will get his chance to make a case for an extended run in the job.
Bears General Manager Ryan Poles said recently that he doesn’t know if cornerback Kyler Gordon will play for the team again and Gordon reportedly isn’t with the team as he tries to work his way back from a calf injury.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Gordon has been working on his own with a trainer as he tries to get on the field. Gordon is on the physically unable to perform list and will miss at least the first four games of the season.
Per the report, the plan is for Gordon to return to the Bears closer to the end of that window and that the hope is that he will be ready to start practicing with the team at that point.
Gordon only played in three games last season while dealing with multiple injuries and is in the second year of a three-year contract he signed in 2025.
Bears receiver Rome Odunze is dealing with a right calf injury, but he may still be able to play in Sunday’s season opener against the Panthers.
Head coach Ben Johnson told reporters in his Tuesday press conference that Odunze is “more day-to-day right now” after he left last Thursday’s practice early.
“I don’t believe he’ll be out there today, but we’re hopeful he’ll be out there on Sunday,” Johnson said.
Odunze is entering his third pro season. Last year, he appeared in 12 games, catching 44 passes for 661 yards with six touchdowns. He then had four receptions for 88 yards in two postseason games.
The Bears’ first injury report of the season is due out on Wednesday.
Matt Suhey, a member of the Bears’ Super Bowl XX champions, has died.
The Bears confirmed to the Associated Press that Suhey died at the age of 68. No cause of death was given.
Suhey was a 1980 second-round pick after playing at Penn State and spent most of his 10 seasons with the Bears as a lead blocker for Walter Payton. That run included the franchise’s only Super Bowl win and Suhey ran for his only career postseason touchdown in Chicago’s rout of the Patriots that secured the Lombardi Trophy.
Suhey, who spent his entire career with the Bears, ran 898 times for 2,946 yards and 20 touchdowns in 148 regular season games. He also caught 260 passes for 2,113 yards and five touchdowns over his decade in the NFL.
The Bears had some good news and some bad news on the injury front at Monday’s practice.
Reporters at the session noted that wide receiver Rome Odunze did not take part in the session. Odunze left last Thursday’s practice early with what appeared to be a lower body injury.
Running back D’Andre Swift also left that practice early, but a report said he was dealing with a cramp and he was on the field on Monday. Kyle Monangai was also on the field after missing most of the last month with a hyperextended knee.
The Bears will issue their first official injury report of the season on Wednesday and that will provide more clues about whether any of the three players are at risk of missing the opener against the Panthers.
The Bears have reworked several contracts to free up cap space ahead of the 2026 season.
Field Yates of ESPN reports that they have restructured the contracts of guard Joe Thuney, defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo, and linebacker T.J. Edwards. The moves free up approximately $17 million in cap space.
All three players are signed through the 2027 season and will see their cap numbers for that rise as a result of the moves.
It’s not clear if the Bears have an immediate use in mind for some of that cap space, but they were among the teams with the least space prior to the moves and may simply want to have the breathing room for needs that could arise during the season.
The Bears saw two offensive players leave practice early on Thursday and a report updates the reason why one of them left the field.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that running back D’Andre Swift had a cramp. Reporters at the practice said that Swift was holding his midsection as he made his way to the sidelines.
There’s no word on Swift’s outlook, but the Bears will take a few days off before returning to finalize their preparations for their Week 1 trip to Carolina and a cramp would not seem to be a long-term injury. That would be good news as Kyle Monangai is questionable to play due to a hyperextended knee.
Odunze’s condition has not received a similar update, but reporters at the practice said he was trying to get back into the workout so the Bears may have avoided major injuries on both fronts.
Bears fans will be monitoring the status of two offensive players heading into the team’s Week 1 game against the Panthers.
According to multiple reporters, wide receiver Rome Odunze and running back D’Andre Swift both made early exits from Thursday’s practice. There was no word from the team about either player and head coach Ben Johnson is not scheduled to speak to the media until next week.
The Bears will also start issuing official injury reports after Wednesday’s practice.
Odunze dealt with a foot injury while catching 44 passes for 661 yards and six touchdowns last season. Swift is backed up by Kyle Monangai, who has been hampered by a knee injury this summer, and Roschon Johnson.
